UK Event Reports

2013 Sainsburys School Games. Sheffield 12th – 15th September 2013

The 2013 Sainsburys School Games took place in Sheffield between 12th and 15th September with a fully integrated competition including wheelchair players, standing disabled players and players with a learning disability. The winners of the individual events were as follows:

All the games were very competitive producing a high level of quality table tennis. In the mixed disability team event the winners were England (Midlands).

Overall when both the individual and team events were added together it was the South East team who came out on top over the whole weekend.

For more information and pictures please see the Sainsburys School Games 2013 website.

The DSE Championships Nottingham 15 – 16 June 2013

The standard of play at the 2013 DSE championships was very high, with many exciting and very close matches for the spectators to enjoy. .Three players, all from Wales , dominated the championships, Ashley Davis, and Nathan Thomas both finishing as triple champion and Lawrence John, a very promising junior and current BTTAD Junior champion finishing with a gold, silver and bronze.

In the wheelchair events, Ashley Davis repeated his success in last year’s championships by again winning each of the three events that he entered, although Ryan Hubbard took him very close in the Open final. Ashley must now be considered as one of the top GB wheelchair players.

Nathan Thomas, a class 10, dominated the standing events , taking gold in all 3 events, although David Wetherill, the world number 4 in class 6 , did manage to get a game off him in the final of the Open. Nathan beat Lawrence John in the final of the Class 8-10 singles and the two paired to win the standing doubles. As Nathan coaches Lawrence, it proved to be a good weekend for coach and pupil. In the Open semi-finals, Nathan had beaten Lawrence, whilst David had beaten Peter Cameron in a very close game 9 in the fifth. Lawrence beat Peter Cameron to take the bronze in this event.

In the Class 6-7 final, David played Peter again, but this time it was Peter, from Scotland, who took the gold with another five game thriller, taking the final game 11-9. Peter’s gold and two semi-final places demonstrated that our more experienced players can still challenge our ever increasing band of up and coming youngsters.

The win of the tournament was without doubt Lucie Bouron’s 5th game victory over Shaun Newcomb in the Quarter-Finals of the Wheelchair Open. Lucie lost in the semi to Ryan Hubbard but played well. Daniel Bullen, the other semi-finalist, beat Lucie to take the bronze.

Ella Booker won the Ladies Standing Open and, following the retirement of Victoria Bromley, is quickly establishing herself as the new number one in GB

Other impressive performances included Craig Allen narrowly losing 13-11in the fifth to Lawrence John in the Class 8-10 semi-finals, Thomas Matthews, form Wales taking bronze in the class 1-2 singles and pairing with Ashley Davies to take the gold in the doubles